


Easy, Not So Easy

by Lady Divine (fhartz91)



Series: Outside Edge [16]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Hockey, Ice Skating, Light Angst, M/M, Teen Romance, customer service b.s.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 18:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11258343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhartz91/pseuds/Lady%20Divine
Summary: Kurt tries to enforce an important rink rule, but an irritating mom is just not having it.





	Easy, Not So Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I know you're all still waiting for Kurt and Sebastian's first time. And I am writing it. I promise. Romantic sex scenes take me a while. I want to get it right. Many of these one-shots are a reflection of things that happen while I'm down at the rink every day, and this happened just yesterday. And seeing as Kurt is my kindred spirit, I had to write this xD Also, you guys wanted me to write some run-ins with bad parents, so here you go :)

“EZ-Skaters on the other end of the ice, please.”

The boy holding the device in question – a blocky walker-looking thing made of PVC pipe and held together by copious amounts of silver duct tape – looks at Kurt blankly. “What?” he grunts, barely even opening his mouth.

Kurt sighs. Yup. That’s usually the response he gets when he tries to enforce this rule. What’s the point of posting signs up everywhere if you still have to tell people when they get on the ice?

“EZ-Skaters, like the one you have right there,” Kurt says, pointing to the walker with a rigid finger, “need to stay on the far end of the ice, on the opposite side of the orange cones. You can’t take it to the center of the ice. Rink policy.”

“Yeah, well, my mom rented this for me, so …” the boy mumbles as he takes off, probably assuming that Kurt won’t bother following him. Kurt sighs again because now he has to go hunt down the boy’s mother.

Kurt avoids dealing with parents when at all possible. Even the parents of the kids he coaches can sometimes be pains in the ass, especially when the behaviors of their “precious angels” come into question. But they usually see reason over time, especially since, in the case of competition hopefuls, reputation comes into play. Nobody on the competition circuit wants to deal with a prima donna.

The days when that sort of drama was considered interesting went out with the likes of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.

Customers, however, can be the worst. They notoriously try to get away with _everything,_ as if the all of ten bucks they spend to get into the place for one afternoon gives them carte blanche to act like entitled jerks. And nine times out of ten, the kids that parents rent the EZ-Skaters for don’t actually need them. They’re just too scared to fall on their butts to buck it up and do the work it takes to learn how to skate.

But this rule about the EZ-Skaters isn’t petty. It’s necessary. It was created to protect the kids who _use_ the EZ-Skaters after a hockey player tripped and fell on a little girl awhile back, obliterating the EZ-Skater and crushing her in the process. She was fine, thank goodness - nothing on her but a few scratches and bruises - but it almost meant a huge lawsuit for the rink.

Kurt just wants to practice today without breaking a limb.

Kurt looks around outside the ice. The rink is fairly empty except for the hockey players running drills on the far side, and him and Sebastian practicing for Kurt’s upcoming Grand Prix. On the sidelines, he spots a woman about the same age as his mother, watching from the penalty box as her little delinquent tools around with his EZ-Skater as if it were an Arctic dog sled. Kurt skates over, stops in her field of view, and clears his throat.

She makes it a point to stand from the bench she’s sitting on and look over his head.

“Excuse me,” Kurt says, “but is that boy with the EZ-Skater your son?”

“Yes,” she says with a proud smile.

“I’m sorry, but he can’t take that EZ-Skater out onto the ice. It has to be used over there” – He points dramatically to his right even though he knows she probably won’t look – “where the cones are.”

“But I rented it,” she says, eyes tracking her son intensely in her attempt to completely avoid looking at Kurt.

“I know that,” he says.

“So why can’t he use it?”

“I’m not saying he can’t use it,” Kurt says calmly, calling upon years of practice at keeping his temper in check in the face of argumentative bullies. “I’m saying he can’t take it out to the center of the ice. He has to use it over where the cones are. Rink policy.”

“I didn’t know that,” she says, crossing her arms defiantly over her chest.

“There’s a sign on the box office window up front where you paid for the rental.”

“Didn’t see it.”

“The gentleman at the rental window would have told you when you picked it up.”

“He didn’t.”

That answer steams Kurt because yes, he did. Kurt _knows_ he did. The man behind the rental counter has been with the rink for over a decade. He knows how important this rule is to the skaters’ safety, and he’s as vigilant as anyone there. There’s no way he’d forget to mention it this one time.

“There’s a sign right there on the ice.” Kurt gestures to a white sign not five feet from the entrance to the rink, with big black letters that say _EZ-Skaters are required to stay on this side of the cones_.

The woman has the gall to not even look.

“I’m sorry, but do you work here?” she says, her lips twitching with a condescending smile.

It would be easy to tell the lady that, yes, he does indeed work there (and, to a degree, he does), but he looks _young_. He _knows_ he looks young. And because he looks young, he could be the frickin’ general manager of the rink and that still wouldn’t make any difference. So Kurt gives her his fakest polite smile and says, “If you’d like to talk to someone else about that policy, you can speak to that lady over there. We call her Coach Beiste.” Kurt points in the direction of the actual general manager and head hockey coordinator, Shannon Beiste, pacing outside the wall, watching three aisles of hockey players run drills. “But whether you do or not, if your son doesn’t follow the rules, the EZ-Skater needs to be returned to the rental window.”

The woman scoffs at Kurt, rolling her eyes when he doesn’t just leave and remains rooted in her line of sight. “Al _right_ ,” she says in an _I’m only doing this to humor you_ sort of way. She grabs her purse from the bench behind her and walks out of the penalty box. Kurt follows her with his eyes as she approaches Coach Beiste, making sure she actually goes and doesn’t walk past to the restrooms or the Snack Shack.

“Another parent giving you trouble, babe?” Sebastian asks, skating over from the far side of the ice to find out why his boyfriend hasn’t returned to practice after leaving to get a drink of water over five minutes ago.

“Of course.” Kurt leans in to Sebastian’s side and puts his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Or else it wouldn’t be a day ending in _y._ ”

***

“Excuse me, Coach … uh … Beiste?”

“No, no, no, guys! Cut left! _Left_! Then push him out of the way!” Beiste screams, directing the kids on the ice with both hands. Her left hand, clutching her clipboard, swings out wide, grazing the head of the woman beside her.

“ _Excuse me_ ,” she says a bit more loudly, hands shielding her scalp, though she’s determined that if she doesn’t get the burly woman’s attention this time, she’s going to give up and leave. The nerve of that kid trying to tell her, a paying customer, what her son can and cannot do. Whatever happened to _the customer’s always right_? Well, Yelp is sure as hell going to hear about it if this woman can’t give her a good reason why her son shouldn’t be allowed to skate on the entire ice like everybody else.

“Yes?” Beiste stops flailing when she registers a voice talking to her. “How can I help you?”

“It seems I’m having an issue with some kid telling me that my son can’t use his EZ-Skater.”

“What?” Beiste makes a face. “ _Of course_ , your kid can use his EZ-Skater. You paid for it, you use it. End of story.” Coach Beiste glances down the ice in search of the woman’s son. “Uh, where is he?”

“Over there,” the woman says, smugly pointing out her twelve-year-old boy hunched over a too-small-for-him walker and sliding with it across the ice.

“Oh, no,” Beiste says. “No, no, no. The EZ-Skaters need to stay on the other end of the ice, hun. Where the orange cones are. It’s a rink policy.”

“I see,” the woman huffs, put out at hearing that same excuse twice. “I didn’t know that.”

“Well” – Beiste chuckles – “there _is_ a sign up front.”

“I---I didn’t see it,” she claims, not quite as firmly as she had with Kurt.

“There’s also a sign right there,” Beiste says with a nod of her chin.

“I … may have overlooked that one.”

“And the guy at the rental counter would have told you.”

“He didn’t,” she insists.

Beiste turns to face the woman beside her, fixing her with a significantly unamused look, and says, “Yes, he did, hun.”

Floored by Beiste’s sudden seriousness, the woman takes a step back. “Uh ...”

“It’s a liability issue,” Beiste continues as if her mood had never changed. “You see, if those EZ-Skaters get away from your kid and hit another skater, that could result in a serious accident. Someone could trip and fall, bones could even get broken. You see our figure skaters out there?” Beiste points to the center ice, where the woman’s kid speeds past a girl practicing a camel spin. “Some of them pay a helluva lot of money to train here. I can’t risk any of them getting hurt, no more than I can risk your kid getting hurt, neither.”

“Y--yes.” The woman swallows and nods. “Yes, I see. That makes sense.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t’ve rented the EZ-Skater if your kid didn’t need one, would you?”

“No. No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Good. Well, then. I’m glad you understand.” Beiste claps the woman heavy-handedly on the shoulder. “Now, I have to head over to the other rink. But if you need anymore assistance, we have staff all over. You’ll know them by their red jackets that say _staff_ on the back.”

“Gr---great,” the woman stutters. “That’s …”

“We also have two junior coaches on the ice today who can help you out.” Beiste sticks two fingers in her mouth and whistles loud enough to make half the rink jump. “Hummel! Smythe! Give us a wave over here!”

Kurt and Sebastian wave their way, bright smiles on their faces as if they haven’t been paying attention to this exchange the whole time. Kurt’s smile in particular grows even brighter when the woman stares at him, her face drawn.

“Come on, team!” Beiste bellows, a hand cupped to the side of her mouth that she doesn’t really need to amplify her voice. “Let’s head on over to the other side!”

Kurt and Sebastian watch Beiste saunter away, leading her troupe of hockey players to the other rink like a mother duck herding her ducklings. Somewhere along the way, both the combative mother and her obnoxious son disappear, the EZ-Skater abandoned beside the orange cones.

Kurt shakes his head at the ridiculousness of it all and sighs - with relief this time.

“I _love_ the way it feels to watch someone get called out when they really deserve it,” he says. “Don’t you?”

“I do,” Sebastian agrees, snaking an arm around Kurt’s waist now that there’s no one around to see.

Kurt turns to him slightly and cocks an eyebrow. “Better than making out?”

“Mmmm … close.” Sebastian looks up at the puck-riddled ceiling and thinks. “But maybe we should go to the locker room and check. You know, just to make sure.”

“Yes,” Kurt says, giggling as Sebastian puts his hands on his hips and pushes him toward the nearest exit. “Let’s.”

 


End file.
